Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that the government can try to negotiate with the US to see whether it would be willing to lease the weapons systems the government plans to acquire from the US in addition to continuing its efforts to purchase them.
"We can try to discuss with the US government about whether we can borrow the systems from them, but we will not stop our effort to seek passage of the special arms procurement plan in the legislature," he told the Legislative Yuan's plenary session yesterday.
Hsieh made the remark in response to a question asked by independent Legislator Li Ao (
Li said that the US government has an obligation to provide the nation with defensive weapons in accordance to the Taiwan Relations Act.
"Mind you, it does not say `sell,'" Li said. "According to US standards, we are entitled to get those arms free of charge, just like Central American countries do."
"Why do we want to spend money buying them?" Li said.
He also asked Hsieh to give him a yes or no answer regarding whether he would delay the arms procurement plan until the negotiations with the US bear fruit.
"It is not such a simple question that I can answer yes or no to it," Hsieh said. "We can try to talk to the US government, but it is impossible for us to stop buying the systems before the negotiations are successful, because I cannot put the lives of our people on the line."
Li then broke in and said that Hsieh was actually refusing to put the interests of the US at risk because the Taiwan Relations Act was drawn up in the US interest not that of Taiwan.
When asked by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (
"If the NT$480 billion arms procurement project passes the legislature as we expect, I guarantee you that it will not be necessary to earmark any more special budget to buy any weapons," he said.
Lee also told KMT Legislator Tsao Shou-min (
"Although we can control the military factors in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait 100 percent, the political elements are not in our hands," he said.
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (
Lin said that according to his research, members of the Executive Yuan's taskforce set up to handle the task of domestically manufacturing submarines have told him that they were not called in to discuss the matter since last May, while Wu and Chou claimed that the decision not to build the subs was made recently by taskforce members.
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